Lawmakers Set For Battle On Key Issues Of Elderly

October 8, 1985|By Diane Hirth, Tallahassee Bureau

TALLAHASSEE — To a small conference room in his office, Senate President Harry Johnston, D-West Palm Beach, summoned a handful of key senators and aides to brainstorm Monday about issues affecting the elderly.

As Johnston scribbled notes on a legal pad, Appropriations Chairman Sen. Pat Neal, D-Bradenton, played ``prophet of doom`` -- challenging everyone in the room to attach a realistic pricetag to his or her proposals.

The debate was a clear indication that aging issues will be a frontburner topic when the Florida Legislature returns to full-time business in April 1986.

Abuse of the elderly is expected to be a major focus of the next session. Another driving force will be dollars -- the search for practical and humane alternatives to costly institutional care for senior citizens.

``We`re really going to concentrate on (elderly issues), particularly on preventative care,`` said Johnston after the meeting broke up. ``If we don`t, we`ll have a balloon mortgage of $1 billion for Medicaid nursing home beds in 1990 -- or sooner.

``If we can prescribe better nutrition, free physical exams and home health care, then we can keep them out of nursing homes,`` Johnston said.

The governor`s Florida Committee on Aging soon will present its legislative recommendations.

Meanwhile, the Senate Select Committee on Aging zeroed in Monday on its three priorities: elderly abuse, long-term health insurance and ``medigap`` insurance.

``I sit here and feel almost helpless and hopeless about this whole situation,`` said Sen. Mary Grizzle, R-Belleair Shores. She protested that she was tired of ``waiting all these years for studies`` on elderly abuse.

Instead, the state should focus immediately on training people to recognize and report abuse, she said.

Committee testimony suggested that elderly abuse is spottily reported, poorly tracked and unevenly prosecuted. In some state attorneys` offices, for instance, there is a special person designated to investigate elderly abuse; in others, there is no one and almost no follow-through on reports of abuse.

One approach that the state may consider is improving guardianship laws so people who have that power over an elderly person are held responsible for their actions.

On so-called ``medigap`` insurance, the committee vowed to investigate whether the state can get tougher in requiring insurance companies to fully disclose what policies cover -- and whether the state could get stricter in imposing penalties on false advertising of such policiies.

Committee Chairman Sen. Jeanne Malchon, D-St. Petersburg, said she is bothered particularly by television ads which fraudulently tout ``medigap`` policies. ``If the company is in Oshkosh, Indiana . . . and they have no agents here, can we levy a fine?`` she asked.

Cynthia Fuller of the state Insurance Department answered, ``My understanding is we`ve exercised that right.`` But she explained there is no way to exercise prior censorship over those ads and they are investigated only when there is a complaint.

Finally, the committee is pursuing what incentives they could give the insurance industry to offer more long-term care insurance. Currently, coverage for extended nursing home stays and home health care services is rarely offered and fairly expensive; there are only 14 such policies available in the state.

Insurance companies ``are telling us they just don`t have the (actuarial) data,`` Fuller said.

But Malchon said she is hopeful that because of the large number of elderly people in Florida, ``the pool would be large enough to bring down the premium.``